Villanueva, Carlos Raúl( 1900 – 1975 )
Museo Soto sketch, c. 1969 , Fundación Villanueva Caracas, # 3219 r, 21 18 cm, Graphite on
sketch paperKnown for his urban renewal projects in Venezuela and for organizing professional architecture and
planning associations, Carlos Raúl Villanueva promoted a modern architecture balanced by respect
for the preservation of the colonial architecture of Latin America.
The son of a Venezuelan diplomat, Villanueva was born in Croydon, England. He studied at the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts and received a diploma in 1928. Relocating to Caracas, he began private prac-
tice the following year. Although beaux-arts trained, Villanueva led the modern movement in
Venezuela, reflecting his contemporaries’ work in Europe. He successfully integrated art into his
architecture and translated modernist concrete forms to the sunlight of the tropics, using screens,
reflection, and shading devices. One of his most celebrated projects was the elementary school
Escuela Gran Colombia ( 1939 ). A building to attain the social ideals of modernism, it rejected histor-
ical precedent. Other buildings designed by Villanueva include the Olympic Stadium ( 1950 – 1952 ),
El Paraiso Housing Development ( 1954 ), and the University City projects, School of Architecture
and Urbanism, Pharmacy Building, and the Olympic Swimming Stadium ( 1957 ), all in Caracas (Van
Vynckt, 1993 ; Villanueva and Pintó, 2000 ).
Paulina Villanueva explains that her father had a distinct method of using sketching during his
design process. He sketched with ‘strong yet precise strokes that enabled him to compose complex
ideas with few lines’ (Villanueva and Pintó, 2000 , pp. 9 – 10 ). She recalls that he would sketch many
small images to reach a design solution and continually revisit those first sketches. To achieve these
bold and efficient sketches he used a blunt pencil. The resulting heavy line provided a concise out-
line. Although he destroyed many of his drawings and sketches, considering them as only part of the
process, a few of these graphically robust images remain, primarily from his final projects.
Villanueva’s sketches appear consistent with his architecture. The straightforward expression of
edges, abstract shape, and precise proportion reflects his use of bold modernist forms. This page
(Figure 7. 11 ) presents a preliminary study for the Jesús Soto Museum of Modern Art in Bolivar City,
Venezuela. The sketch, dating from the late 1960 s, shows a site plan of the museum and describes the
juxtaposition of the various buildings. At this early stage in conceptual design, he was not concerned
with straight lines or details. This shows in the minimal forms that describe buildings, some with only
four lines. Several of the buildings have been roughly darkened and others appear unfinished, such as
the overhangs/porches on the galleries. The sketch is an attempt to quickly comprehend the whole
site. Concerned with contrast that could help him visualize the context, he shaded the ground with
bold texture using a continuous zigzag stroke.
Considering the series of sketches that exist for this project, the design evolved as to location of
the parking, placement of the irregular central plaza, and shape of several buildings. The three rect-
angular gallery spaces that face the curved street remained consistent throughout the process. Here he
held fast to the bold and strong forms, using them to anchor the site.^5
Villanueva utilized an economy of lines for these first studies. He was recording forms as they
presented themselves, not eliminating their potential. This is evidenced by the fact that he did not
take the time to erase and redraw shapes. Villanueva was comfortable visualizing a spatial organiza-
tion from a small sketch, then critiquing its qualities for the evolution of the scheme. The abstrac-
tion of the small sketches did not hinder the early development of the design. Most importantly, he
was able to ‘read’ these partial forms to translate them into architectural form.H5719-Ch07.qxd 7/15/05 3:47 PM Page 189